FISO "First Draft" League

[Stemania]

Just checked in on the league standings. Turns out starting with 4 Arsenal players has not gone well.

[Talkie Toaster]

GW3 waivers:

Round	Manager	Team	Transaction	Success	Explanation
1	Terrier Ramone	Bayer Goalscorer	None	-
1	Stemania	Willy Rönkä's Bucket	None	-
1	robot	Chaco Forever	None	-
1	Talkie Toaster	Crash Test Dummies	Clyne Matip	✓
1	wahine	Kane or Biff?	None	-
1	Mav3rick	Black Magic	PvA Aurier	✓
1	S_sutton87	Ollies Ostriches	Lindelöf Maguire	✓
1	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	Stones Aurier		Aurier taken by Mav3rick
1	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	Stones D Sánchez	✓
2	Talkie Toaster	Crash Test Dummies	Clyne Zappacosta		Clyne transferred out
2	Talkie Toaster	Crash Test Dummies	Clyne Aurier		Clyne transferred out
2	Talkie Toaster	Crash Test Dummies	Clyne Daniels		Clyne transferred out
2	Mav3rick	Black Magic	PvA Zappacosta		PvA transferred out
2	Mav3rick	Black Magic	PvA Zappacosta		PvA transferred out
2	S_sutton87	Ollies Ostriches	None	-
2	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	Stones Mawson	]	Stones transferred out
2	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	Bravo Krul	✓

Much easier with Mav's updated Draft tool.

The bottom teams choosing to stick this week and hope for a change in fortunes.

[Talkie Toaster]

GW5 waivers:

Round	Manager	Team	Transaction	Success	Explanation
1	Stemania	Willy Rönkä's Bucket	Gayle A Carroll	✓
1	Terrier Ramone	Bayer Goalscorer	None	-
1	Talkie Toaster	Crash Test Dummies	None	-
1	wahine	Kane or Biff?	Hegazi Stones	✓
1	Mav3rick	Black Magic	Yoshida Stones		Stones taken by wahine
1	Mav3rick	Black Magic	Yoshida TAA	✓
1	robot	Chaco Forever	None	-
1	S_sutton87	Ollies Ostriches	None	-
1	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	Redmond Choupo-Moting	✓
2	Stemania	Willy Rönkä's Bucket	Gayle Wood		Gayle transferred out
2	Stemania	Willy Rönkä's Bucket	Gayle Sturridge		Gayle transferred out
2	Stemania	Willy Rönkä's Bucket	Cédric Lovren	✓
2	wahine	Kane or Biff?	Hegazi Clark		Hegazi transferred out
2	wahine	Kane or Biff?	Hegazi Daniels		Hegazi transferred out
2	wahine	Kane or Biff?	Hegazi Lascelles		Hegazi transferred out
2	Mav3rick	Black Magic	None	-	-
2	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	Krul Pope	✓

Black Magic have also sneaked in an early free agent: Heaton Butland.

[Talkie Toaster]

GW6 waivers:

Round	Manager	Team	Transaction	Success	Explanation
1	Talkie Toaster	Crash Test Dummies	Blind Lascelles	✓
1	Stemania	Willy Rönkä's Bucket	Phillips Brady	✓
1	Terrier Ramone	Bayer Goalscorer	None	-
1	wahine	Kane or Biff?	None	-
1	Mav3rick	Black Magic	TAA Mustafi	✓
1	robot	Chaco Forever	None	-
1	S_sutton87	Ollies Ostriches	None	-
1	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	Choupo-Moting Xhaka	✓
2	Talkie Toaster	Crash Test Dummies	None	-
2	Stemania	Willy Rönkä's Bucket	Lovren Hoedt	✓
2	Mav3rick	Black Magic	TAA Holebas		TAA transferred out
2	Mav3rick	Black Magic	Ayew Brady		Brady taken by Stemania
2	Mav3rick	Black Magic	Gabbiadini Wood	✓
2	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	Choupo-Moting Brady		Choupo-Moting transferred out
2	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	Welbeck Wood		Wood taken by Mav3rick
2	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	Welbeck Bony	✓
3	Stemania	Willy Rönkä's Bucket	Lovren Soares		Lovren transferred out
3	Stemania	Willy Rönkä's Bucket	Dann Mee	✓
3	Mav3rick	Black Magic	None	-	-
3	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	None	-
4	Stemania	Willy Rönkä's Bucket	Dann Ward		Dann transferred out

[MoSe]

I'm puzzled by Stem:
if you wanted Cedric over Mee, why only in place of Lovren?

if you've put L to Cedric as 2nd request then you prefer Cedric, or you'd have put L to Mee as 2nd
that is you sohuld not only put a 2nd target to safeguard someone snatches your 1st, but also another safeguard in case you GOT your 1st, and still want the 2nd

1st dropper to 1st target
1st dropper to 2nd target
2nd dropper to 2nd target
1st dropper to 3rd target
2nd dropper to 3rd target
....
or not?

[Stemania]

I'm puzzled by Stem:
if you wanted Cedric over Mee, why only in place of Lovren?

if you've put L to Cedric as 2nd request then you prefer Cedric, or you'd have put L to Mee as 2nd
that is you sohuld not only put a 2nd target to safeguard someone snatches your 1st, but also another safeguard in case you GOT your 1st, and still want the 2nd

Well, you watch closely.

With Lovren struggling to play and with dodgy fixtures I wanted a mid term defender for future weeks with good fixtures who I could actively make use of in the upcoming games (Southampton was the best I could find) so went Lovren to Hoedt(/Cedric). But they have a tough fixture this week so didn't intend to play them (MUN) - if it didn't go through I was happy to save trying to get one till next week (and in the worst case Lovren would be OK as a keep). With Kompany being a doubt I also needed a backup defender for this week as a separate priority (because Dann wasn't going to provide that). Burnley looked the best bet to me so that's why it perhaps looked odd.

May have let the cat out of the bag with my general strategy though, transfer in the defenders you want in future to the bench ASAP if you're not going to use the bench player before then. Leaving Lovren to Southampton defender till next week may have left me open to missing out on my preferred one.


Everyone in this league is screwed now anyway - Arsenal have a great fixture run and I initially landed myself with four of their players. I think we'll all agree that has been a great decision thus far. Add to that Benteke at City and Carroll vs Spurs and the opposition has no chance.

[dino1980]

I'm glad I'm not in the same league as you because I've been using the same 'future defender' strategy, so Everton last week in prep for their good run, Saints this week etc.

[Stemania]

I'm glad I'm not in the same league as you because I've been using the same 'future defender' strategy, so Everton last week in prep for their good run, Saints this week etc.

On the contrary, I think you'll find the rest of this league is delighted to be in it with me given the pig's ear of rabble my team selection is. Benteke, Carroll, Arnie, Tadic and 4 Arsenal inc Ozil. Kill me now.

[Talkie Toaster]

I'm glad I'm not in the same league as you because I've been using the same 'future defender' strategy, so Everton last week in prep for their good run, Saints this week etc.

On the contrary, I think you'll find the rest of this league is delighted to be in it with me given the pig's ear of rabble my team selection is. Benteke, Carroll, Arnie, Tadic and 4 Arsenal inc Ozil. Kill me now.

Well at least you've got me giving you a good run for the No.1 waiver spot.
I made good use of it this week too: Lascelles got me 1pt, which was 1 point more than the other 4 defenders which I didn't change.

[Stemania]

It's gotten worse: Aguero-Benteke-Carroll frontline.

How on earth are you supposed to deal with that in draft? There's so few strikers available. Hello Andre Gray and.....oh God.

[Talkie Toaster]

GW7 waivers:

Round	Manager	Team	Transaction	Success	Explanation
1	Talkie Toaster	Crash Test Dummies	None	-
1	Stemania	Willy Rönkä's Bucket	Benteke Gray	✓
1	Terrier Ramone	Bayer Goalscorer	None	-
1	Mav3rick	Black Magic	Aurier Zappacosta	✓
1	wahine	Kane or Biff?	None	-
1	robot	Chaco Forever	None	-
1	S_sutton87	Ollies Ostriches	None	-
1	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	None	-

A quiet week this week.
Stem has also gone for Brady Choupo-Moting under free-agency.

[Stemania]

A quiet week this week.

Oddly quiet. Is everyone else broadly happy with their squads?

Even though I made 67% of the transfers this week I was still down to 9 starters (in a 15 man unlimited transfers game), so fair to say I've thought better of mine.

[Talkie Toaster]

A quiet week this week.

Oddly quiet. Is everyone else broadly happy with their squads?

Even though I made 67% of the transfers this week I was still down to 9 starters (in a 15 man unlimited transfers game), so fair to say I've thought better of mine.

I'm happily blaming my players rather than my choices.

[Talkie Toaster]

GW8 waivers:

Round	Manager	Team	Transaction	Success	Explanation
1	Talkie Toaster	Crash Test Dummies	None	-
1	Stemania	Willy Rönkä's Bucket	None	-
1	Mav3rick	Black Magic	Mustafi Rose	✓
1	Terrier Ramone	Bayer Goalscorer	Llorente Sturridge	✓
1	wahine	Kane or Biff?	None	-
1	robot	Chaco Forever	None	-
1	S_sutton87	Ollies Ostriches	None	-
1	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	Xhaka Bakayoko	✓
2	Mav3rick	Black Magic	None	-
2	Terrier Ramone	Bayer Goalscorer	None	-
2	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	Bony Batshuayi	✓

Another quiet one.
International break apathy perhaps?

Edit: I've gone for Defoe Okazaki as a free agent.

[Talkie Toaster]

GW9 waivers:

Round	Manager	Team	Transaction	Success	Explanation
1	Talkie Toaster	Crash Test Dummies	None	-
1	Stemania	Willy Rönkä's Bucket	None	-
1	Mav3rick	Black Magic	Redmond Choupo-Moting	✓
1	robot	Chaco Forever	None	-
1	Terrier Ramone	Bayer Goalscorer	Jagielka Moreno	✓
1	wahine	Kane or Biff?	Milner Fernández	✓
1	S_sutton87	Ollies Ostriches	None	-
1	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	None	-
2	Mav3rick	Black Magic	Moses Zappacosta	✓
2	Terrier Ramone	Bayer Goalscorer	None	-
2	wahine	Kane or Biff?	Milner Naughton		Milner transferred out
3	Mav3rick	Black Magic	Redmond B Silva		Redmond transferred out
3	wahine	Kane or Biff?	None	-

A couple of Free agent signings so far:

wahine: Koscielny Fonte
Jok57: Batshuayi Gabbiadini

[Talkie Toaster]

GW10 waivers:

Round	Manager	Team	Transaction	Success	Explanation
1	Talkie Toaster	Crash Test Dummies	None	-
1	Stemania	Willy Rönkä's Bucket	None	-
1	wahine	Kane or Biff?	Fernandinho Doucouré	✓
1	Mav3rick	Black Magic	Zappacosta Aurier	✓
1	robot	Chaco Forever	None	-
1	Terrier Ramone	Bayer Goalscorer	Sturridge Diouf	✓
1	S_sutton87	Ollies Ostriches	None	-
1	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	D Sánchez Koscielny	✓
2	wahine	Kane or Biff?	Fonte Ward	✓
2	Mav3rick	Black Magic	Cresswell Koscielny		Koscielny taken by Jok57
2	Mav3rick	Black Magic	None	-
2	Terrier Ramone	Bayer Goalscorer	None	-
2	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	Willian Xhaka	✓
3	wahine	Kane or Biff?	Vokes Diouf		Diouf taken by Terrier Ramone
3	wahine	Kane or Biff?	Giroud Hemed	✓
3	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	None	-

Mav3rick appears to have gone on an early Xmas shopping Free Agency spree:

Choupo-Moting Townsend
Cresswell TAA
Martial Stanislas
Wood Llorente

[Talkie Toaster]

GW11 waivers:

Round	Manager	Team	Transaction	Success	Explanation
1	Talkie Toaster	Crash Test Dummies	None	-
1	Stemania	Willy Rönkä's Bucket	None	-
1	Mav3rick	Black Magic	Stanislas Choupo-Moting	✓
1	wahine	Kane or Biff?	Hemed Sturridge	✓
1	robot	Chaco Forever	None	-
1	Terrier Ramone	Bayer Goalscorer	None	-
1	S_sutton87	Ollies Ostriches	None	-
1	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	Xhaka Fernandinho	✓
2	Mav3rick	Black Magic	TAA D Sánchez	✓
2	wahine	Kane or Biff?	Doucouré Martial	✓
2	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	Pope Lössl	✓
3	Mav3rick	Black Magic	Llorente Defoe	✓
3	wahine	Kane or Biff?	Hemed Pérez		Hemed transferred out
3	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	Pope Begovic		Pope transferred out

My own Free-Agency signing:
a sideways Wijnaldum Can

[Talkie Toaster]

GW12 waivers:

Round	Manager	Team	Transaction	Success	Explanation
1	Talkie Toaster	Crash Test Dummies	None	-
1	Stemania	Willy Rönkä's Bucket	Arnautovic Sigurdsson	✓
1	Mav3rick	Black Magic	Defoe Benteke	✓
1	wahine	Kane or Biff?	None	-
1	robot	Chaco Forever	Mounie Ibra	✓
1	Terrier Ramone	Bayer Goalscorer	None	-
1	S_sutton87	Ollies Ostriches	None	-
1	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	Gabbiadini Benteke		Benteke taken by Mav3rick
1	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	Gabbiadini Gray	✓
2	Stemania	Willy Rönkä's Bucket	Joselu A Carroll	✓
2	Mav3rick	Black Magic	Defoe Wilson		Defoe transferred out
2	Mav3rick	Black Magic	Butland Pope	✓
2	robot	Chaco Forever	None	-
2	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	Bertrand Mee	✓
3	Stemania	Willy Rönkä's Bucket	Joselu Wilson		Joselu transferred out
3	Stemania	Willy Rönkä's Bucket	None	-
3	Mav3rick	Black Magic	Yoshida Mee		Mee taken by Jok57
3	Mav3rick	Black Magic	Yoshida Gomez	✓
3	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	Bertrand Gomez		Bertrand transferred out
3	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	Bertrand Zappacosta		Bertrand transferred out
3	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	Gabbiadini Ibra		Gabbiadini transferred out
3	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	None	-
4	Mav3rick	Black Magic	Cédric A Smith	✓
5	Mav3rick	Black Magic	Cédric Cook		Cédric transferred out
5	Mav3rick	Black Magic	None	-

We've given the FPL Towers Draft department a workout this week with 5 rounds of waivers transactions.

[Mav3rick]

I don't seem to be particularly good at draft , I spend way more time thinking about my FPL team and then spend 20 mins or so setting up waivers for three draft teams, based mostly on the fixtures that week or next and heavily influenced by players I'd thought about for regular FPL.

Plus, I keep finding myself carrying injured players. I must admit that, outside of setting up a waiver, I don't even look at my draft teams. I didn't even know what I'd scored last week until I created some waivers last night.

Being at work when the FA window opens is a killer too.

There's not even much chat going on really, is anyone really enjoying draft?

[Stemania]

Recently I've been missing the waivers and making my transfers for free on Friday evenings. Not this week though suckers!

The problem I have with draft is that you're basically stuck with the big players you had at the start and there's no alternatives to move to. Aguero car crash means car crash for my team, two Arsenal defenders and Kompany can't be reasonably fixed without going down a rung to the"5m FPL defender tier" etc.

I'm enjoying checking up on it every week and doing a regular Andy Carroll hokey cokey though.

[Mav3rick]

It feels like there's a lot less strategy in draft (perhaps I'm only saying that because I'm 6th out of 8 ), I mean timing injured players etc and picking out perhaps the odd gem that others aren't looking at, but mostly I just transfer the same 3 or 4 spots out of my team every week - 3rd striker and two defenders.

That's probably why I think more about FPL, as there is more going on. I'm not sure there are enough players in the PL to make draft that compelling, as like you say I can't really move players on even if they are injured or out of form.

[robot]

Yes this game is all about that initial selection,not worth taking out even the medium term injured top players, I haven't really used the waivers, just swapped the same few players in and out on a fri night.
Although this week thought Ibra was worth a waiver and now have him in 3 of my 5 draft teams as he could make a big difference, annoyingly not in the 2 cash teams!

[Stemania]

Yeah, I feel like I'm sortof tied to around 9 or so of my spots, because there are simple no other semi-premiums (or even mid-pricers in some positions) available to buy - so my transfers are basically on 4/5th defenders, 4/5th mids and 3rd striker (though that was expanded to 2nd striker too when Benteke got a long term injury and there were no alternatives available over around the 5.5m FPL pricepoint) - the rest of the team just sits and gets however many points it's going to get and I can't do much about it, unless I want to sacrifice a price band altogether and go with a mixture of mid-to-lower half dross.

[Talkie Toaster]

I'm still enjoying the format, even though I've been propping up the league for a while now and this week has been a disaster. I haven't been making too many transfers either though as I rarely see anything available that leaps out as a must have.

I've been enjoying the Draft H2H Divisional league more though: The smaller league size (5 or 6 teams) seems to work well with a bit more quality available to tempt you with waivers; shorter seasons (10 weeks) also make the league a bit more dynamic as you worry less about letting a good player go towards the end of a season; and the Head-to-Head aspect keeps me a bit more involved as I usually check my interim scores over the weekend to see what my chances of a win are and what needs to happen in the remaining games.

Maybe a whole season is a bit long for a draft game and splitting it into 2 or 3 smaller sprints is a better way to go to keep things fresh and prevent the game stagnating?

[Tacalabala]

Bill had a bit of a wobble with his super team, so that might make the cash league more compelling if that carries on.

If we decide to do the cash league next season, I think 4 team leagues is the way to go, that way you should have just enough oversupply of the top players to keep things tight and that first waiver changing hands regularly.

[Talkie Toaster]

GW13 waivers:

Round	Manager	Team	Transaction	Success	Explanation
1	Talkie Toaster	Crash Test Dummies	Lascelles Bertrand	✓
1	Stemania	Willy Rönkä's Bucket	None	-
1	Mav3rick	Black Magic	None	-
1	S_sutton87	Ollies Ostriches	None	-
1	wahine	Kane or Biff?	Ayew Wilson	✓
1	robot	Chaco Forever	None	-
1	Terrier Ramone	Bayer Goalscorer	None	-
1	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	Mee Mustafi	✓
2	Talkie Toaster	Crash Test Dummies	None	-
2	wahine	Kane or Biff?	Stones Mustafi		Mustafi taken by Jok57
2	wahine	Kane or Biff?	Stones S Cook	✓
2	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	Mee Bertrand		Mee transferred out
2	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	None	-
3	wahine	Kane or Biff?	Ayew Niasse		Ayew transferred out
3	wahine	Kane or Biff?	None	-

[Stemania]

The comeback is on! Two Arsenal defenders, Siggy, Shaqiri, Ramsey, Tadic, Daniels, plus Kun and Kompany to play. At this rate I might be as few as 60 points off the pack after today.

[Talkie Toaster]

GW14waivers:

Round	Manager	Team	Transaction	Success	Explanation
1	Talkie Toaster	Crash Test Dummies	None	-
1	Stemania	Willy Rönkä's Bucket	None	-
1	Mav3rick	Black Magic	None	-
1	S_sutton87	Ollies Ostriches	None	-
1	robot	Chaco Forever	None	-
1	wahine	Kane or Biff?	Forster Begovic	✓
1	Terrier Ramone	Bayer Goalscorer	Jesé Doucouré	✓
1	Jok57	Heart of the Morata	None	-

I suspect I wasn't the only one to forget that the deadline for this was Monday evening.

[Stemania]

Yep, I forgot too.

It's odd this game it terms of league position - I've basically done nothing the last two weeks yet (because of high Arsenal exposure and a few other high scorers like Shaqiri, Siggy, Pickford) have gained what seems like 60 or so points on most of the league. When Spurs or Chelsea start scoring again I expect to immediately drop by a similar margin.

You know those wind-up kids toys where everyone winds-up some cheap plastic characters at a start line and lets them go at once? Where some of them that haven't been made so well veer to one side all the time so you have to keep pointing them in the right direction every few seconds - and if you get one of those you decide to point them diagonally so the arc sortof takes them forward - and some of the faster ones hit each other and randomly topple over. It feels a bit like that. We all wound up our toys and we're basically just watching to see which cobbled together piece of tat will cross the finishing line first, much dependent of the quality of the handiwork in the factory and the random bashings that befall our creations.

[Talkie Toaster]

I think I over-wound mine with the transfer of Rooney (15pts) Rondón (2pts)

We have a new league leader though for the first time in months.
Terrier Ramone takes over from Jok57 who was looking like a permanent fixture at the top.